Female CEO Insists A Female President Would Be A Terrible Idea, Because ‘Hormones’
Sorry, everyone who’s been using Hillary Clinton’s recently-announced presidential campaign to prove to their daughters that girls can aim high–please walk those lofty ambitions back a bit. The CEO of a marketing firm in Texas wants us to know that a female President would be a terrible idea, because women “have different hormones”. Case closed, everyone, move along, nothing to see here.
The CEO in question is Cheryl Rios of Go Ape Marketing, as Raw Story reports, and yes, she too is a lady-person. If you find yourself wondering why it’s acceptable for a woman to be the lead executive of a company, but not to lead the executive branch of government, Rios has an explanation for you from the anti-Clinton screed she posted on her Facebook page.. It’s not a good explanation, mind, but it’s an explanation nonetheless:
”With the hormones we have there is no way we should be able to start a war. Yes I run my own business and I love it and I am great at it BUT that is not the same as being the President, that should be left to a man, a good, strong, honorable man.”
Fortunately for Ms. Rios, a close reading of the Constitution, or even a quick skim, should inform Rios that the power to declare war is one reserved to Congress. (Yes, I know the Presidency has been known to saunter sideways around that rule for the past several administrations.) Also worth noting is the fact that if any hormone is one you want to keep away from the ‘let’s start a war!’ button, it’s probably testosterone–you know, the one that dominates in the male body?
Rios also ticked off the ‘I’ll move to Canada’ checkbox on the Whiny Conservative Checklist, cited an unspecified ‘Biblical reason’ to avoid a female-led political campaign, and suggested that a Head of State in a pantsuit would be “looked at differently” by foreign leaders. Apparently conservatives care what foreign leaders think now? At least as long as what they think is something negative about having a female colleague. (Spoilers: quite a few foreign countries have female leaders of their own.)
There’s plenty of room to criticize Hillary on her policies, but as anyone who’s been paying attention should have been able to guess, some of the loudest objections to her campaign that we’re already hearing are based on the idea that she has cooties. It’s a toxic atmosphere for young women with ambitions of their own to be surrounded by, and it’s all the more frustrating when that misogyny is coming from inside the house. A woman who has become a CEO has probably faced more than a little sexism herself, and for her to climb up to the top of the pile and then say that other women don’t belong up there is the worst kind of exceptionalism.
Women don’t have to unequivocally support other women, but they do have to stop undercutting them on the basis of their gender. You won’t find any sound reason a woman can’t be President, not in biology textbooks, not in the Bible, nor anywhere else you might try to desperately look for one. I don’t know if Hillary Clinton will be our first female President (although I certainly hope so, considering what her competition is stacking up to be), but there will be a woman President in my lifetime, and whoever she is, she’ll be a 900% better role model for young women than a female CEO who doesn’t think women can achieve anything men can.
(Images: KTXA-TV)
